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American and Iraqi Christians Join Together

BAGHDAD — Amid grave fears for the future of Iraq’s dwindling Christian community, a group of American military chaplains and lay preachers met with Iraqi Christians at the Rasheed Hotel in Baghdad.

It was a rare encounter for the Iraqis, many of whom have had family members killed, kidnapped and threatened in anti-Christian attacks since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003, but who came in through the Green Zone checkpoints to sing and pray with their American fellow Christians.

The meeting was convened by Canon Andrew White, a British Anglican cleric who is Vicar of St George’s Church in Baghdad and head of The Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East, which raises money to meet the medical, housing and schooling needs of more than 1,000 parishioners.

There is a stark contrast between the Iraqis’ church, which was built in 1936 in west Baghdad as a memorial to those who lost their lives in Mesopotamia in the First World War, and the American Embassy where many of the Americans hold their services.

One lies inside the Green Zone, the other is out in the Red Zone on the west bank of the River Tigris, hidden behind blast walls from surrounding bomb-damaged buildings. In September 2005 all of St. George’s lay church leaders were killed, and many of the women in the congregation are without husbands, fathers and sons.

First, the military cleric quoted in the video should know better than to say that Jesus spoke Hebrew. He actually spoke Aramaic. This is the language the cleric should have been studying if he really wanted to understand Jesus. Second, the videographer should have been educated enough to know that Iraqis didn’t sign in Hebrew even if he/she didn’t know much about the history of Middle East and Jesus times.
Kudos to the reporter who caught the mistake and mentions at the end the Aramaic language that Iraqis sang in.

I know Canon White also for his work in negotiating agreements between Sunni and Shia in Iraq. In my humble opinion it was men like him and the Muslims participants in his negotiations who are in great part responsible for the relative peace that has settled over Iraq.

Andrew is in need of support for his work and I ask you all to join me in doing so.

I know Abouna Andrew as we call him here in Iraq. I am a Shia Muslim but he has never tried to convert me. I as a Muslim will often go to St Georges in Baghdad to hear him. We all love him but I think he is more Iraqi than British. Lets have more about him.
Samir
Baghdad

I am a pentecostal christian and just bought a bilble translated from the aramean,Jusus language,and my reaction from listening to the singing in the aramean was ,O’ my God what a feeling it was like hearing Jesus voice,God bless this valiant brothers ans sisters,in a world full of hate and despair,they have more courage than a million of us American,and may the Lord bless these clerics for been so brave and pasionate about our Savior Jesus Christ,God bless.
Chris Colon

One of the unintended consequences of the war has been the huge displacement of Iraqi civilians, including Iraqi Christians. To my surprise, I never heard or saw any reference to them in the temples and churches that I have visited in the past two years.

Whatever failings can be attributed to George W Bush and the US and UK administrations, it is a most hopeful sign that Canon White and a number of military chaplains are assisting the development of peace in Iraq.

Jesus Christ preaches FORGIVENESS and love of our enemies. Iraq has a hard road to tread and the least we armchair critics can do is to give them every encouragement.

I am quite sure the good cleric in the video simply had a slip of the tongue and meant to say Aramaic. One doesn’t go through years of seminary and then the training it takes to be a military cleric without gaining a sound understanding of Christian history. It is quite arrogant to say that someone who has devoted his life to the study of Jesus and who is brave enough to volunteer for the armed forces as they serve in Iraq doesn’t truly “understand Jesus”. God bless all of the brave Iraqis and the valiant military clerics in this video. It was truly refreshing.

Canon Andrew White is one of the most amazing clerics we have ever met. His love for Jesus, the people of Iraq, and people of all faiths is refreshing. His care for the needs of the people in St. George’s Church is a testimony to his true, unselfish character.
It would be good to see more news of this type since much of what goes on there is too sensitive for media or internet reporting.

I’m glad the suffering, displacement, and murder of Iraq’s Christians as a result of Bush’s war allowed a spiritual awakening for American troops responsible for those crimes.

How sickening it is that nobody takes responsibility for the destruction of Iraq’s minority communities; but hey, that’s the price of freedom, right? Just have faith in God and all will be forgiven and the civilizing American soldiers will feel better about their crimes if they hear some Aramaic and feel closer to Jesus.

Response to mommadonna: Shame on YOU for turning a loving and positive event, into an opportunity to politicize it, and push your biased agenda. Its people like YOU that put the Iraqi peoples future in jeopardy, via negative demonizing rhetoric and a desire to see Iraqis fail as well as America. Take a good long look in the mirror, sir.

Jesus spoke Aramaic. He read the Torah in Hebrew. But there may be more to the story. See the quote below from my book “Q Will Human Species Survive”:

“Jesus may very well have spent all or many of those 18 years working with his father in one or more of the towns in the local area. It is plausible that Jesus could have come into contact with educated and worldly Jewish intellectuals and Romans. A town being rebuilt near his home during that period was Sepphoris, a Jewish intellectual Roman city-town. It was located within walking distance from Nazareth. There, we can assume that with his brilliant mind, by the age of 30, Jesus may have met intellectual Jews and Romans. He may even have mastered Greek, which was the intellectual language of the time. He could have been tutored by Jews in Sepphoris, as that city was then known as a seat of intellectual Judaism comparable to Jerusalem. There, he may have been exposed to Jewish mysticism and its Kabbalistic ideas. He could have been exposed to Hellenistic ideas through theatre—Greek theatre in some form may have existed in Sepphoris. Highly skilled Roman engineers and architects were, no doubt, brought in as builders. He could have been exposed to their ideas. This is all conjecture; nevertheless, it would be naïve to draw the conclusion that this brilliant young Nazarene spent the first thirty years of his life in a small workshop in a small house in a small town doing carpentry work with his father, and then with only that limited exposure burst on to the scene.

At – about – the age of 30, Jesus began his ministry. To say it was a ministry built upon a carbon copy of the philosophical streams of thought coming from the Roman Empire, as is suggested by many skeptics—and described above—would be a very serious understatement. It was built upon the Mosaic foundation of Judaism. But, it did not accept Judaism as most of Judaism at that time saw it, nor did it accept the other existing philosophical thought of the time….”

Your country is responsible for killing and maiming hundreds of thousands innocent Iraqi civilians, many of them children, and you have all but destroyed Iraqi Christianity. Now its the fault of the people who are pointing this out?

Actually, Jesus would have spoken both Aramaic AND Hebrew. He would have spoken Hebrew as his mother tongue as well as the language of the Old Testament and ritual. He would have spoken Aramaic as a sort of regional lingua franca and may even have known Greek as the international language of his day and of course the language of the occupying power.

In any case, Hebrew, Aramaic and Arabic, as Semitic languages, are all quite closely related. The words of the song the choir was singing in Aramaic “Qadisha, Qadisha, Qadisha” (“Holy, Holy, Holy”), are “Qadosh, Qadosh, Qadosh” in Hebrew and “Qudus, Qudus, Qudus” in Arabic.

Aspire to live in peace and joy, make the nation of Iraq to take steps of prosperity, let us not forget the lives that has burned up for these cause on both side. Hence forth let the nation of Iraq stand as a beacon of peace and prosperity and tolerance for other religious belife. Blessed be the soul of the soliders, civilians and citizens who sacrificed their life for the above cause.

I am one of those Iraqi Christians who was spared this war but whose family was turned into refugees. My uncle was kidnapped and tortured. My cousin was decapitated in an explosion. SO don’t you dare lecture me on this war or the role American soldiers have played.

If you had any capacity to understand what has been done to Iraqis by your brave American troops, if you had any inkling and were still a human being, you would understand those precious American soldiers who are now listening to the last sounds of Aramaic in Iraq are to blame as well. I will direct my anger and rage at the perpetrators of violence. We are ALL responsible for our actions. Those soldiers are guilty, just as their political leadership is. And you wonder why the world hates the US? The world despises you and the excuses you make for your crimes.

I hold those American soldiers in contempt, as I do people like you who cannot see what you’ve done to the people of Iraq.

Comments are interesting reflections of assumptions. James 1:47 assumes that rules and game would be the same, just the uniforms would be different. They don’t have a clue about being under Islamic law, something likely to be imposed thru a muslim invasion yet inversely, actually given a voice in Iraqi constitutional discussions. Freedom to criticize Islam would be gone, ulimately death penalty for apostacy from Islam. Muslims would be “protected”, and then some. Institutional policies would favor those who adopted Islam and public expression of things non-muslim would be highly restricted. brave old world. US naivite was going into a situation of such cultural animosities without a game plan for controlling it.

You missed the point DC was trying to make. He meant that many American Troops fighting in this war, whether they support the cause or not, do not have a choice to where they are sent or their assignment. They are given orders and they carry out their orders. That is their job. but God being in control of everything has given these soldiers an assignment of His own to give these men and women hope in a time and place where so many are without it. So do not be bitter towards these men and women. Don not forget Jesus teaches to Love and Forgive your enemy as He loves and forgives us no matter what we’ve done.

I understand perfectly your point and DC’s point and I stand by every comment I made.

Why do you always expect the victims to forgive, like it is their obligation to do so? And in this case, the victimizer HASN’T EVEN ADMITTED HIS GUILT!

All we hear about is the “brave American soldiers”. Guess what? This is a volunteer army, and half the Americans in Iraq are literally mercenaries with orders to shoot on sight.

No, I will not forgive the evil of American troops or their leadership. Why don’t you direct THOSE soldiers to ask for forgiveness before you ask their victims to forgive?

By the way, that is a classic colonial tactic: Ask the person who is occupied and colonized to forgive their oppressors to assuage the guilt those oppressors must be feeling. No, I’m sorry–you Americans have created bitterness and rage and anger, and yes, you will reap what you sow in the form of many years of terrorism against you. That is not a hope of mine, it is an observation of fact.

Until YOU repent and amend your ways and offer compensation to your Iraqi victims, don’t even think about forgiveness. All Iraqis despise you and your murderous soldiers and regime.

I am the priest in this video that looks after both the Iraqi and coalition congregations. They are both the most wonderful people I have ever served, I have been here over ten years and have no plans to leave.

In Christ we are one. My Iraqi brothers and sisters and the Americans meet each other every week. The Americans help us look after our Iraqis. They have indeed suffered so much. It is a very large church of well over 1000 families. We have to provide food for all our people every week. To do this we are helped very much by the home churches of the American troops. We are one body all is very difficult. There is pain in both peoples. All the time both my congregations have people killed. Yet we also have a God who suffered and was killed.

We are aware that there are things that are wrong but the only way we can move forward is to love each other, love our enemies. love our God and Hope in Jesus. It is strange to say but these people trully are the most wonderful people I have ever served and they just happen to be Iraqis and Americans.

Canon Andrew White
Baghdad

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